Piercing the myth: How privatizers got their mitts on Medicare, The Stand, Kip Sullivan Insurance companies decried Medicare’s fee-for-service model. But then Congress let them replace it with something much worse. (May 4, 2023) — Congress enacted Medicare in 1965 as a fee-for-service system because the insurance industry did not want to insure the elderly […]
What should President Biden do if Republicans refuse to raise the debt ceiling? What should he say he will do, in advance, to avoid a catastrophe and gain leverage in negotiations? The answer to these questions is far from clear. Krugman and Klein on unorthodox legal strategies Paul Krugman argues that the administration should do […]
The so-called Gephardt Rule (in honor of Representative Dick Gephardt who introduced its first version) provided that when the House agrees to a budget resolution, the Clerk shall prepare a joint resolution suspending the debt limit for the fiscal year covered by the budget resolution. It was repealed at the beginning of the 107th Congress, […]
Labor has gained since the pandemic, but corporations have been sucking up the lion’s share of those gains . . . – by New Deal democrat I neglected to add a link to my Weekly Indicators piece at Seeking Alpha on Saturday, so here it is. Also, I’ve been trying to understand why, with all of the […]
My old Michigan standby on the PPACA. If there was something I needed to know, I could always count on Charles knowing the answer. I believe some of the state and federal politicians also relied on Charles for information. What is also kind of cool is Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer issuing a directive on Medicaid […]
I had read the JAMA Network version of this report although I could not get into the Full Text version. You can find a more open version by using a New in Private Window. Cliff notes . . . the polluting company paid for moving the people. In which, the health of the people, the […]
A long and good NYT take on why poverty continues to exist, stays stagnant or continues to grow in one of the richest nations in the world and the most capable of all to end poverty. A good read. “Those who have amassed the most power and capital bear the most responsibility for America’s vast […]
Joseph Stiglitz is calling for an honest and open debate on the debt ceiling and future expenditures and whether there is any relationship between the two. He states the expansion of the debt ceiling has no relationship between it and laws having future expenditures. The debt ceiling has no bearing on legal expenditures. It is […]
As of today, Trump seems well-positioned to win the Republican nomination. The basic dynamic is familiar from 2016 – Trump has a strong base of committed supporters, the opposition will likely be divided, and many Republican primaries are winner-take-all or winner-take-most. Couple this with the bump in support Trump got after his indictment in NY, […]
Jobless claims: yellow caution flag persists – by New Deal democrat In response to last week’s big jump in new jobless claims to 264,000, I wrote that it might be an outlier vs. the beginning of a rising trend. This morning claims fell back to their previous average range, at 242,000. The 4 week average […]